“Something Over Something Else”: Romare Bearden’s Profile Cincinnati Art Museum February 28–May 24, 2020
It is a major coup that the Cincinnati Art Museum is showcasing the work of the renowned African-American artist Romare Bearden who launched his career during the height of the early twentieth-century’s Harlem Renaissance in New York. The exhibition “Something Over Something Else”: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series gives Cincinnatians a visual treat this spring and […]
Jessie Dunahoo at The Carnegie
It was a drizzly Tuesday afternoon. With long sleeves balled around his hands, Matt Distel opened the front door of The Carnegie. The previous Friday would have been a big night for the Exhibitions Director, but along with art and cultural events across the country, the opening reception for four new shows was cancelled due […]
Inside the Galleries: Art From Arrival to Installation
From soup to nuts. Ever wonder how a piece of art makes it to the gallery floor? Here’s an inside look at the Cincinnati Arts Association’s Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery and the Cincinnati Art Museum and how that happens. Weston Art Gallery shows an eclectic mix of emerging and professional artists […]
Perin Mahler: “Storytellers and Other Works”
A contemporary analysis of social stress is the subject of investigation of Perin Mahler’s colorful, large scale narrative figure paintings at the Manifest Gallery in Walnut Hills. On viewing this work serially, one cannot avoid becoming cognizant of the artist’s social perceptions as well as his personal introspections which inspire the narrative scenarios of these […]
Phantom Pleasure: Consolations from Some Online Art
I was looking forward to reviewing the N. C. Wyeth show at the Taft, and was planning on seeing it on a Sunday with my wife. We’d see the show, have brunch, check out the gift shop. On Friday the 13th—I know, right?—I went online to check out the museum’s hours—is it that they open […]
Trail of Tears: “Motel X: A Multimedia Human Trafficking Prevention Art Installation” at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, January 11-April 4, 2020
When I first came to Cincinnati, I was told that I-75 had been designed by someone who had heard of an interstate highway but never actually seen one. At times, it feels like it was little more than a good guess on the builders’ part. I-75 sprouts red barrels as empty fields sprout crabgrass, and […]
Refusals and Offerings: Revolutionary Identity at the Kennedy Heights Art Center
Revolutionary: Being American Today advances a poignant, collaborative statement about the contradictions of contemporary U.S. citizenship. At once historically dense and urgently contemporary, it draws together works by John Brooks, Kiah Celeste, Amanda Curreri, Stephanie Cuyubamba Kong, Brianna Harlan, Anissa Lewis, Melissa Vandenberg, and Renzo Velez. Curator Jessica Oberdick assembles those works in ways that […]
“Pop Supernatural” at The Weston Art Gallery
On view through April 5th at the Weston is an exhibition by a Cincinnati native and current New York dweller, Todd Pavlisko. Pavlisko’s “Pop Supernatural,” is – as you might guess – guided by conversations with popular culture. The Weston’s two floors organize the exhibition. The entrance level floor holds a few different threads, while […]
Art Education for All at the Contemporary Arts Center, Taft Museum of Art and the Cincinnati Art Museum
“The city has room for three different art centers,” said Elise Solomon, director of learning and engagement at the Taft Museum of Art. Shawnee Turner, Elizabeth Hardin-Klink and Emily Holtrop, her counterparts at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAM) and the Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM) respectively would agree. Often under the radar, they all actively develop […]
Where The Sidewalk Begins
In the midst of Downtown Cincinnati, there is a much beloved architecturally and historically significant building celebrating its 200th birthday. With the exception of a few other early American and European Colonial and Native American structures on this continent, most have not survived and even fewer in this region of our country. Cincinnati was founded […]